Arno Wouters

philosophy of biology / philosophy of action

A short CV

I studied biology at Wageningen University (1974-1980).
I studied philosophy at Groningen University (1980-1986).
I did research in philosophy of science at Utrecht University (1989-1994).
I taught a variety of courses in theoretical philosophy at several universities (Groningen, Utrecht, Nijmegen) (1995-1997).
I worked three years as a researcher in computer science (1998-2000).
I obtained a PhD in philosophy of science from Utrecht University (1999).
I worked 2 years as lecturer philosophy of the life sciences at the Institute Biology Leiden (2001-2002).
I worked 10 months as a staff member for the Centre for Society and Genomics (2004).
I worked 2 years as postdoc Neuroscience and Personhood at the Heyendaal Institute Nijmegen (2005-2007).
I taught philosophy of biology at the Institute for History and Foundations of Science (Utrecht) (2007, 2008, 2009).
I taught philosophy of mind and action at the Radboud University Nijmegen (2007-2008).
I taught philosophy of cognitive science at Utrecht University (2008).

An elaborate CV can be found here.

Current Job

From 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2012, I work as a postdoc at the Department of Philosophy of the Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands), in the context of the VIDI-project of Maureen Sie, titled "Conscious Control, Deliberative Awareness, and Moral Agency". This project aims to think through the implications of the paradigm of adaptive unconsciousness in social and moral psychology for philosophical action theory.

Office:
: Woudenstein, room H05-28
Burg. Oudlaan 50
3062 PA Rotterdam
Address:
: Department of Philosophy
P.O. Box 1738
3000 DR Rotterdam
The Netherlands
Phone:
: +31 (0)10 40 88 987
E-mail:
Fax:: +31 (0)10 408 90 30

Jobs in the recent past

From 5 June 2005 to 31 December 2007, I worked as postdoc at the Heyendaal Institute of the Radboud University Nijmegen on a project titled "Neuroscience and Personhood". (The Heyendaal Institute was involved in theological and philosophical research into the relation between religion, science and culture. The Institute was axed on 31 December 2007.)

From 1 January 2008 up to 30 June 2008, I worked part-time as teacher philosophy of cognition at the Department of Philosophy of the Radboud University Nijmegen.

From 1 February 2008 up to 31 July 2008, I worked part-time as researcher at the Department of Religious Studies of the Radboud University Nijmegen.

From 25 April 2008 up to 27 June 2008, I worked part-time as lecturer at the Institute of History and Foundations of Science of Utrecht University

From 1 September 2008 up to 1 February 2009, I worked as teacher 'philosophy of mind' at the Department of Philosophy of Utrecht University.

Philosophy

My philosophical research interests include:

anthropological issues in connection with moral psychology, neuroscience and evolution,
explanation and understanding in biology,
the relation between the different levels of organization,
the philosophical aspects of the recent trend towards systems biology,
teleology and structuralism, Darwin, D'Arcy Thompson, 19th and 20th century morphology,
mechanisms, causality, counterfactuals, laws of nature.

Interests and hobbies

My interests include: computers, nature, natural science (especially biology), and philosophy.

My favorite pastimes are: reading, hiking, bird watching, dancing, and the internet.

E-mail

My work e-mail address is:

My private e-mail address is:

Please, do not send me HTML documents and, please, consult me in advance if you want to send me attachments.

The name of this site is derived from New Zealand's only surviving native owl, the Morepork or Ruru. I had a great time tramping in New Zealand and an owl seems an appropriate symbol for a philosopher of biology (picture courtesy of Tom Tarrant from aviceda).

Upcoming Talks

No talks planned yet

Past talks

Selected publications

Neuroscience and responsibility (neuroethics)

Arno Wouters "Neurowetenschap en mensbeeld" (lezing gehouden voor het symposium De (ir)relevantie van de neurowetenschap voor sociale wetenschappen, filosofie en religiewetenschappen, Heyendaal Institute Nijmegen, 4 October 2005 (in Dutch).
Wouters, Arno G. "Ontoerekeningsvatbaarheid: een achterhaalde notie?" Neuropraxis 10(5): 134-137 (2006).
Wouters, Arno G. "Woont de persoon tussen de neuronen?" Filosofie, jrg. 17, nr. 4 (themanummer "De geest als natuurverschijnsel"), pp. 22-25.
Maureen Sie & Arno Wouters "The real challenge to free will and responsibility" Trends in Cognitive Science 12(1): 3-4 (2008). (A final draft is available from my website.)

Explanation in biology (philosophy of science)

Wouters, Arno G. (1995) "Viability Explanation", Biology & Philosophy 10: 435-457.
Wouters, Arno G. (1999) Explanation Without A Cause. Ph.D. thesis, Utrecht University.
Wouters, Arno G. (2003) "Four Notions of Biological Function". Studies in History and Philosophy of Biology and Biomedical Science 34(4): 633-668.
Wouters, Arno G. "The Functional Perspective of Organismal Biology". In: T.A.C. Reydon and L. Hemerik (eds.), Current Themes in Theoretical Biology: A Dutch Perspective (Springer, Dordrecht, 2005), p. 33-69.
Wouters, Arno G. "The Function Debate in Philosophy". Acta Biotheoretica 53(2): 123-151 (2005).
Wouters, Arno G. "Functional explanation in biology". In: R. Festa, A. Aliseda, and J. Peijnenburg, Cognitive Structures in Scientific Inquiry: Essays In Debate With Theo Kuipers vol. 2 (Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 84), p. 269-293, Rodopi, Amsterdam & Atlanta (Ga.), 2005.
Wouters, Arno G. "Design Explanation: determining the constraints on what can be alive". Erkenntnis 67(1): 65-80 (2007). (A final draft is available at my website, the original publication is at www.springerlink.com).

Computer science

A.G. Wouters (2001) Manual for the mCRL tool set (version 2.8.2). CWI Research Report SEN-R0130; CWI, The Netherlands, 2001.
J.F. Groote, J. Pang & A.G. Wouters (2003) "Analysis of a Distributed System for Lifting Trucks", Journal of Logic and Algebraic Programming, 55:21 - 56.

Other pages of my hand

Apple Macintosh Links - a list of sites of interest to academic users of Apple MacIntosh computers (especially those at Dutch universities)
Tips voor efficiënt e-mail gebruik (tips for efficient use of e-mail - in Dutch)
HTML and Web publishing links - annotated links of interest to people at the university who want to use the web to publish information about teaching and research.
Arno Wouters' productivity software - an annotated list of the software I use to get my work done
Mijn ervaringen met de iLiad en het NRC ePaper (my experience with the iLiad and the NRC ePaper, in Dutch with an English summary - zie ook de NRC ePaper wiki op MobileRead)
Pictures from New Zealand (Summer 2005)
Pictures from the Netherlands (scenery, animals and plants)
Nederlandse index bij de Mitchell Beazley Pocket Guide to Butterflies (pdf)

This page was made by Arno Wouters.
E-mail:

Last Updated: 21-Nov-09.